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Thursday, November 09, 2006

A Win Against a 1759

I'm back above 1700 (again) after a win today against a 1759 on PlayChess. I'd have to check to be sure, but I think this may be the highest rated player that I've beaten. Looking at his history, he's been as high as 1800+, so I feel pretty good. It wasn't an "error-free" game, but I still think that it was of a fairly high quality...especially in the opening and middlegame. My worst mistakes were in the king and pawn endgame, but he missed the biggest one and made one of his own, allowing me the win. Let me know what you guys think:

There was a neat tactic in an unplayed side line. If instead of 16. ... gxf6 your opponent plays Qxf6, 17. Rxd6 is punished by Bxc4.

The endgame was a good example of why it's so important to know endgames. Not only because the advantage was passed back and forth, but because your opponent should never have traded into that ending. You have to know which endings are won or lost to know whether it's ok to trade the last pieces.

That is a fun little tactic...I actually saw that line during my analysis while playing the game, but he (obviously) ended up playing the gxf6 line instead.

On your endgame comment, I agree 100%...I was shocked when he traded down into the king and pawn ending, which I knew was won for me. I was then ready to slap myself when I turned it into a draw and then a loss. I saw the mistakes immediately after each of the moves, but fortunately my opponent didn't.

I tend to be pretty decent with K & P endgames...both of my mistakes in that ending were due to carelessness rather than lack of endgame knowledge. Since I was confident that the game was won, I played too quickly...bad, bad, bad!